Invited Speaker

Jian Xu, PhD

Member, St. Jude Faculty
St. Jude Children's Research Hospital 

Jian Xu received his Ph.D. with Dr. Stephen Smale from UCLA, where Dr. Xu studied epigenetic regulation of stem cell pluripotency. In 2008, he joined Dr. Stuart Orkin’s laboratory at Boston Children’s Hospital as a Helen Hay Whitney-HHMI postdoctoral fellow and studied the developmental control of fetal-to-adult hemoglobin switching. In 2012, he became an instructor in Pediatric Hematology-Oncology at Harvard Medical School. His studies with Dr. Orkin provide the first in vivo evidence that genetic inactivation of the zinc finger protein BCL11A is sufficient to ameliorate sickle cell disease (SCD) in preclinical models and lay the groundwork for ongoing development of gene therapies to target BCL11A for treating patients with inherited hemoglobin disorders. 

Dr. Xu is the recipient of a Helen Hay Whitney Foundation postdoctoral fellowship (2008), an ASH merit award (2009, 2010), a NIH career development award (2011), a CPRIT Scholar in Cancer Research (2014), an ASH Scholar Award (2015), and an LLS Scholar Award (2019). 

Selected Publications

Lyu J, et al. Cancer Discov. 2023 
Patrick M, et al. Cell Metab. 2022 
Gu Z, et al. Nat Genet. 2021 
Li K, et al. Cancer Discov. 2020 
Gu Z, et al. Cancer Discov. 2019 
Liu X, et al. Cell. 2017 
Liu X, et al. Nat Cell Biol. 2017 
Huang J, et al. Dev Cell. 2016 
Xu J, et al. Mol Cell. 2015 
Xu J, et al. Science. 2011 
Xu J, et al. Cell. 2011